


Braver Than You Believe

by Drel_Murn



Series: Step by Step [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Dreamsharing, Fire Nation (Avatar), Fire Nation Capital, Fire Nation Royal Family, Firebending & Firebenders, Gen, Honoiro, Honoiro | Fire Nation Capital, Meddling, Meddling Spirits, Runaway, Runaway Zuko, Spirits, Zuko's childhood - Freeform, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 11:39:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8204920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drel_Murn/pseuds/Drel_Murn
Summary: All I ever learned from the man others call my father is how to believe in myself.I learned to strive in adversity, and death after death just pushes my farther from him.





	

My father always told me that, while my sister was born lucky, I was lucky to be born. I think that he was trying to make me grateful to him or something, but all it ever did was make me set myself more firmly in my beliefs and move on.

 

My first memory is my father telling me that very sentence with a disappointed look on his face. I think that was the first time it happened because I remember my eyes welling with tears and the feel of Kuzon's insubstantial hands on my shoulders and his voice in my ear as he tells me to stand proud because if I was lucky to be born, then I need to honor that luck.

 

Before I turned five, I spent my days running free in the gardens, bringing back turtle ducks to my mother and Kuzon, playing with my oldest cousin Lu Tun, and generally just doing what I want to. There are a couple of times that I'm sent off to Master Piandao, but that's just standard practice, finding me a prospective home, just in case I don't turn out to be a firebender. To be honest, I think that swords are just as cool as bending, if not more so because of - because of reasons!

 

Piandao doesn't teach me much then either, letting me borrow a dull but weighted wooden sword and letting me exhaust myself. Of course Kuzon doesn't let me just play, but after he taught me, he let me fight him.

 

Once I’m five though, that changes. Once I turn five without so much as a hint that I might be a firebender, people start to whisper that I'm going to be fostered off to Piandao.

 

I want to growl at them, but Kuzon taught me that it was actually quite possible, and the only reason it hasn't happened yet is likely because of my position as fourth in line for them throne. He warns me that if I don't show some sign of firebending soon though, the rumors will become reality.

 

I know the underlying reasoning, but when I think of how it would mean essentially losing my family, I almost don’t care.I don’t care about the numerous scared that are hidden beneath my robes, I don’t care that I can’t have my shirt off on the beaches like a normal child because of the numerous scars that are scatter over my torso. I don’t care how dangerous it is to live with a firebender when I myself am not one. I spare a brief moment of jealousy for my little sister, a prodigy who was bending by her second birthday.

 

My time with Piandao changes as well, but this change is more of a positive one, in that he's actually teaching me to fight. Instead of the jian that Kuzon had been patiently teaching me how to use, he teaches me how to fight with a dao. I love my time with him, love the way he doesn’t treat me like a god or like nothing, and my happiness always buoys me until my first dinner at home, where I hear the rumors once again, hear the _worthless_ , hear the _cursed_ , hear the _why has he not been fostered out yet?_.

 

* * *

 

There’s also the new oddity that I find myself wondering over. Vasuman was presented to me on the day of my fifth birthday by Kohaku, the man who has been my servant for as long as I can remember as my new personal servant. He comes with me when I visit Piandao, not that Piandao allows him to do anything for me, and tries to anticipate my needs when I’m at home.

 

He doesn’t say anything about me being fostered out, and that’s something I’m glad for as I gradually get to know him. Sometimes, when I’m practicing the meditation exercises the one of my tutors had given me, I can feel his eyes on me, evaluating me and judging if I am worth the effort.

 

When I ask Kuzon his opinion, he hums slightly, a smile on his lips. “He’s a very sharp young man, of that I have no doubt. So long as he thinks you are worthy, he will follow you to the ends of the earth and back.”

 

There’s an odd longing in Kuzon’s voice that sends shivers down my spine before Kuzon shakes his head and smiles warmly at me.

 

* * *

 

I spend what time I am allowed free as far away from the court as I can get and still be within the palace. Vasuman doesn’t comment on my tendencies to wander to the furthest corners of the gardens and lie down, simply bringing scrolls and reading to himself. Kuzon settles himself next to me, always in one of the forms much younger than the ages he looks most of the times, and in these quiet moments, he tells me stories of his life, both before the Air Temple Massacre, and after, when he had fled to the Northern Water Tribes.

 

He talks wistfully about one Monk he had met and been close friends with, and about his regret that he didn’t manage to save anyone.

 

My, mother, my cousin, and my cousin’s servants are the only ones to travel out to my corner of the gardens, and I find myself grateful that they come to me, and let me avoid the hallways and courtiers with their lies and their false sympathy like nectar-bee honey - sweet, and poison enough to kill you with a taste.

 

My mother always sits on the stone bench, but Lu Ten sprawls on the ground next to me, lazily waving a hand at Nuan to tell him that he’s free to do as he wishes before he babbles on about his day, complaining and complimenting in the same breath before moving onto the next subject in a continuous flow.

 

* * *

 

Despite her young age, it becomes more and more clear as I grow older that my little sister favors her father, not my mother. For all that I love her, I’m also frightened of her and for her. She’s the one that gave me most of my scars, and that doesn’t stop are we grow older.

 

I brought my mother turtle ducks when I was young. Azula brings my father their corpses, feathers burnt and shells charred slightly.

 

And she has taken the court’s mutterings to heart, taunting me when she sees me in the hallways.

 

“Useless Zuzu. If only you could firebend.”

 

Fire flickers in the palm of her hand with those words, and her smirk is very telling as she motions for her friends to follow her. She knows that will sting too, because I have not had the opportunity to make friends, to go to school. Not when it becomes ever more likely that I will be removed.

 

* * *

 

I’m eight, and the arrangement are almost finalised for my fostering under Piandao. The only thing left is for my to return to his care. I’m sitting with my cousin, our servants, and Kuzon in my corner of the garden when I left out sight, my breathing exercises done, and a flame ( _it’s short, pathetic and cold in comparison to what I’ve seen others bend, but it’s a flame!_ ) comes out with my breath, leaving all of us frozen and staring.

 

Then suddenly there are are two sets of arms around me, one solid and warm, the other insubstantial, but just as welcoming.

 

“You did it!” Lu Ten cries, and I can’t help it when the first giggle slips out, then the second, but by the third I’m no longer trying to keep my laughter in as tears slide down my face.

 

“You did it,” Kuzon murmurs in my ear, and  nod against Lu Ten’s chest because _I did it_.

 

Lu Ten guides me through the meditation I have memorised, making slight correction to my stance that Kuzon with him memory dulled my the years hadn’t been able to make. Then I do it again, this time Kuzon reminding me what to fix with Lu Ten’s corrections in mind. Then again, and again, fire coming to me more and more.

 

The sharp movements still feel unnatural, and the most I get out of it are little poofs of flames only about as long as my forearm, but this is more than I’ve ever gotten before, and I can’t help but feel elated.

 

The only thing that feels even remotely the way it should be is the simplest in theory, and the hardest in practice; holding a ball of fire over my palm. This I understand. This makes sense in a way that nothing in my life except Kuzon has.

 

I turn slightly so that I can see Vasuman sitting on the ground next to Nuan, and he looks up, as if he had felt my gaze. I tilt my palm slightly in his direction, the fire moving with my hand. His eyes flicker to the fire, and he smiles, the emotion odd on his face, and nods

 

At dinner, I want to shift in my seat as I wait for the flow of conversation to turn to me and any news that I might have. My time is delayed slightly, but soon enough my turn comes, and I put my hand above my plate. I take a breath, encouraged by Kuzon’s ghostly hand on my shoulder, then breathe _out-_

 

* * *

 

Piandao is informed of the change in plans, and I find myself sad that I will not be seeing him as a teacher again. Living far away from the court had been nice and given me a rest from the constant gossip, and Piandao himself had been a fair, if insistent teacher. I am sent off to school for the first time in my life, and a different set of tutors are assigned to me now that I no longer require the full set, and do require a firebending teacher.

 

I’m excited to go to school, and ready to make more friends than my servant and cousin, but a day of it is quick to dispel my illusions. School is long and boring, going at a much slower pace than my tutors went at in order to make sure that the whole class could keep pace.

 

As for friends, while some of the no doubt would be willing, it is far too easy for their other friends to sweep them away before they have the chance to offer. I’m glad for Kuzon, because I’m sure that if it wasn’t for him, I would have searched for my sister and her friends during the small break we are afforded just for something to do since my second choice of entertainment, a scroll, is not allowed in the yard.

 

* * *

 

I’ve been to Ember Island before, but after I turned five without bending, my father refused to take me there - to reward me for being ‘defective’ - and my mother refused to leave without me, so none of us have been in three years. That fight is the only fight I can remember where my parents actually sounded like they were fighting, yelling at each other and throwing things, and with the memory of that, it feels odd to step on the sand of the island and once again look at our house.

 

It feels odd to leave Vasuman, who has been a constant presence by my side since I was five, behind.

 

Kuzon trails behind me, commenting on the slight disrepair and the dust that had settled in our absence. As if she’d heard him, my mother looks around and declares, “Well, we’ll need to spend some time fixing this place up!”

 

Ozai grunts, glaring at the open front room, and Azula simply laughs. “You expect me to clean? As if!”

 

My mother’s smile falters, falling into the sad look I’ve seen on her face more and more recently as azula and my father wander further into the house.

 

“Don’t worry,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around her waist. “We’ll be able to clean it up well.”

 

Mother smiles down at me, her face still carrying a hint of the sadness that she had been feeling. “Thank you, Zuko. I just wish that your father and your sister were more willing to help.”

 

I smile as her, then let go and pick up my bags. “I’ll be right back, I’m just going to put my bags away.”

 

But Ozai and Azula never do take an interest in our activities, the divide in our family simply growing more and more clear over the summer. Mother takes me to see the Ember Island Players every night, and while after around a week, it becomes clear that there are only seven different performances right now. It doesn’t matter to my mother, who loves watching them, and I don’t really mind watching them to spend time with her.

 

Kuzon comments and sheer ridiculousness of their plays. “I mean, airbending looks nothing like that, to say nothing of their entirely inaccurate portrayal of waterbending and earthbending, _which are still around for them to observe_.”

 

At the end of the summer, Azula and Ozai walk out of the house without looking back, but Mother lingers.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing,” she sighs, picking up her bags and turning away. “I just thought that . . . we should have been happy.”

 

* * *

 

I turn nine during a break in the war, one where Uncle Iroh can come home for a week at a time now as the troops concentrate on pacifying the countryside that they’ve conquered now, and setting up rulers to replace the local rulers that they’ve killed or imprisoned. As they do this, people who have been waiting for the new colonies go to the colonies that have already been pacified and families are directed one by one to villages that they can set themselves up in.

 

Lu Ten grows ever more distracted as the Fire Lord mandates that he provide plans in the war room now, instead of simply listening. Whenever he’s free of his tutors, whenever he’s free of war meetings, he comes and joins me in my little corner. He doesn’t really have any friends other than me and Nuan, but I hadn’t really seen that before. Now he’s stressed and constantly trying to think of better solutions to keep our people alive.

 

When Uncle Iroh comes home, he teaches us about the bending styles he’s fought against, but when we’re alone, we just lie there and talk.

 

At some point, he tells me about his dreams of a child my age, and he even asks Nuan to get out a scroll with a drawing they had worked together to make.

 

Kuzon looks over my shoulder as he shows it to me, and remarks that whatever Lu Ten’s dreams were, he was at least drawing what people of the Water Tribes looked like better than my text books.

 

“In fact, this kid looks like Kanna,” Kuzon mutters, reaching forward and tracing the shape of the boy’s eye.

 

Lu Ten’s face is solemn as he regards the scroll. “This is Rakesh. I’m not sure that he’s real, and if you ever see him, he probably won’t be calling himself Rakesh, but . . . he’s important to me.”

 

I glance between Lu Ten and the scroll for a moment before I lean into his side. “I’ll help him if I meet him.”

 

* * *

 

It takes me a month, even with Vasuman’s surprisingly good help, to draw Kuzon.

 

“This is who I see at night,” I explain to him, feeling slightly awkward. “Like your Rakesh, right?”

 

Lu Ten nods silently, his eyes moving over the parchment. “Only I hear him out of my dreams as well.”

 

Kuzon looks slightly exasperated by the way I whisper that second piece of information, but all Lu Ten does is blink at me, then ask what I want to do next.

 

* * *

 

Two days after he turns twenty two, Lu Ten is sent off to fight in the war with his father. My taunts me about it whenever she sees me. _So desperate to get away from you that he’ll fight a war. How’s that for friendship._

 

I don’t reply, digging my fingernails into my palms or consciously practicing the bending exercises, but I don’t reply. I learned not to after the first time. Her friends, Mai (a governor's daughter from a long line of ninja women,) and Ty Lee (a highly trained spy and assassin along with her six sisters, all from a line that mysteriously gained many foster children 93 years ago) follow behind her. I don’t look for smiles.

 

I take the opportunity to work on all of the different styles of fighting that I have learned so far, blending them, and adding everything Kuzon can teach me. The firebending styles are useless -  or worse - to me, but even though I can produce more flame simply by breathing, and direct it better with a flick of my wrist, there is only one style of firebending as far as the Fire Nation is concerned.

 

I incorporate everything that actually suits me into a different set of moves, pulling from everything Kuzon could teach me about Water Tribe fighting, bending and nonbending, as well as what he could remember of airbending, pulling from the earthbending that Uncle Iroh taught me, and what few Fire Nation moves that work for me.

 

Lu Ten’s letters come every couple of weeks, and they’re a bright point in my days when they happen. I’m in the odd position of being in line to inherit the throne before my sister, but being less well known than her, and there’s a pressure for me to get friends or become more social so that the people have some idea what their prince is like.

 

My tenth birthday is just as quiet as my other birthdays, if not moreso for the lack of Lu Ten. I am excused from my duties for the day I’m almost at a loss for what to do with the sudden free time. “What do you know about the spirits?”

 

“What?” I ask Vasuman, pulling my fingers from fiddling with a ribbon attached to my robes..

 

“The spirits?” Vasuman repeats, running the comb through my hair again. “What do you know about them?”

 

“Nothing really,” I admit after a moment, my fingers drifting to my robes to play with the ribbon again. “The most I know about them is that they are there, and that Kuzon and Agni are both spirits.”

 

“Kuzon and Agni?” Vasuman asks, but the question is rhetorical. “Of course that’s all you’d know. After what your people have done that would only make sense.

 

“Answer me this, Zuko. What do you truly think of the current situation? Your opinion and not that of the Fire Nation.”

 

“I . . .” I hesitate, instinctively seeking out Kuzon’s eye in the mirror. Kuzon nods, and I close my eyes. “We’re ruining the world. Balance . . . balance is important, and we shattered that almost a century ago. What we’re doing now seems to be more of the same, making it worse. I don’t really understand the point. All I can see coming from our “victories” are dead bodies and sorrow.”

 

Vasuman lingers on that as I open my eyes, a smile playing across his face. “If that is what you think, that the situation is better than I thought.”

 

“It is?” I ask, startled as Vasuman sets the comb aside.

 

“Yes. So, how would you like to learn about spirits?”

 

* * *

 

My head is spinning with facts and myths and types of spirits by the time Lu Ten’s twenty third birthday arrives, and with it, the news that the army has reached Ba Sing Se and began to surround it in order to cut it off from outside resources.

 

Lu Ten keeps sending me private letters, and while they don’t truly grow shorter, the actual content grows to be less and less. It’s easy enough to read between the lines and see that Lu Ten doesn’t like the war, but that has always been clear. Sometimes Lu Ten sends me flowers that he’s found as well, protected by the rolled paper of the scrolls and only slightly wilted by the two day journey.

 

I try to give him the impression that I’m not doing too badly - only telling him about my growing friendship with Vasuman, about the legends and myths I’m learning, and about how far I’ve advanced, but I mention so little about my life that I’m sure he can tell that I’m not as happy as I try to portray myself.

 

My eleventh birthday comes and goes with a day off from my duties once again, and this time I spend it in the garden, practicing the jumble of forms that work best for me and talking to Vasuman about the spirits. I receive a scroll with many labeled pictures of spirits that are common in the Earth Kingdoms from Lu Ten two days late, a note explaining that he’d bought it off of a guru.

 

I remember to send Kuzon’s birthday present two days early. It’s a little circle of wood that I’d carved from a tree that fell in a the last great storm, little symbols for protection carved all over.

 

Lu Ten sends me a note thanking me for it. The next day, a different hawk approaches me, and circles over my head until I offer my arm for it to settle on. Vasuman watches with sharp eyes, but he only shrugs when I glance at him with a question in my eyes. He doesn’t know why it came to me and not him.

 

I gently take the hawk’s note out of the scroll container, and gently give the hawk a boost back into the air.

 

I look over the scroll for a moment, noting Lu Ten’s seal and wondering what could have happened so soon that he would send me a note. Then I break the seal and unroll the paper.

 

* * *

 

I bite my cheek as I listen to my father talk to the Fire Lord, trying to convince im that after Uncle Iroh’s abandonment of the siege on Ba Sing Se, Ozai would be the better choice for Fire Lord.

 

He argues that because of Lu Ten’s death, Uncle Iroh is no longer fit to be heir because there is no one to inherit the throne after him.

 

Blood fills my mouth as I finally bite through the skin of my cheek, and Kuzon’s hands tighten on my shoulders, keeping me in place and listening. Lu Ten died - my cousin _died_ \- and all my father sees it as is an opportunity. Finally, the Fire Lord opens his eyes.

 

“How dare you. My own son. How dare you try to take your brother’s place?” The Fire Lord’s voice echos in the empty hall, the words barely audible over the crackling of the flames. “If that is how you feel now, then you should know the pain of losing your own child.”

 

I can feel the blood draining from my face at those words, and Kuzon’s fingers are digging into my skin, no longer insubstantial. I glance she is just as pale as I am. I hadn’t felt like I should be here from the beginning, but sitting here in the seiza while my grandfather talks to my father about killing me and my sister. I break Kuzon’s grip on my shoulders and run, run away. I collapse to the ground when I finally reach my corner of the garden, and I just lay there, gasping.

 

“He wasn’t talking about killing you,” Kuzon says, running and insubstantial hand down my back as I sob. “Zuko, you are one of his favorites - or at the very least he likes you more than he likes your father. At the most, he would have fostered you out to Iroh.”

 

“Well, that was a very ominous way of saying that,” I reply, not convinced as I let him push me up into a sitting position. “He said ‘know the pain of losing your own child’. That’s not something you say when you want to foster someone out.”

 

“Zuko.” I look up, and blink to see Vasuman standing in the gap between hedges.

 

“Hello,” I reply weakly. “Did you stay? What did he actually say?”

 

“I stayed,” Vasuman says gently, sitting down beside me. “The Fire Lord didn’t have much of a chance to say anything, your father swept out of the room before he had a chance to say any more.”

 

He pauses, examining me. “You bit your cheek.”

 

“My father is willing to kill me,” I reply bitterly, but I let him examine my mouth and press a piece of linen-cotton against the wound.

 

* * *

 

“Zuko. Zuko.”

 

I shift towards the light and sigh happily. “Zuko, wake up. Zuko!”

 

“Huh?” I ask blearily. The light slowly draws me into a half awake, half asleep state before warm hands shake me again.

 

“Zuko!”

 

“Mom?” I ask, recognizing my mother’s silhouette. “What is it? It’s the middle of the night.”

 

“Zuko, I love you.”

 

“I know,” I say, glancing up slightly to see Kuzon watching with an unreadable look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing,” my mother says, but I san smell the salt of her tears. “Just . . . Zuko, promise me something.”

 

“Of course,” I reply, confused.

 

“Always remember who you are. Promise me that you will always remember who you are.”

 

“Of course,” I reply.

 

“Thank you. I’ll see you,” my mother says. She draws her hood up and leaves my room. I watch her go, the light of her candle fading slowly.

 

“I won’t be seeing her for a long time, will I?”

 

“I don’t think so,” Kuzon replies, and he comes closer to wrap me in a hug.

 

* * *

 

“Zuko! Zuko!” I turn slightly so that I can see Azula as Vasuman helps me pull on another robe. “Grandfather is dead.”

 

“Grandfather is dead?”

 

“Yes! The Fire Sages are going to read his will at noon.”

 

“Well,” I sigh and start to shrug out of the robe I had been putting on. “That’s a whole other set of robes.”

 

Uncle Iroh is still gone, disappeared to Agni knows where after he ordered the retreat of the army, and my mother’s appearance last night makes more sense. She’s likely the only one Ozai would talk to who would be able to make a poison, the only one who would be willing to make it.

 

* * *

 

The coronation ceremony is at high noon, right after the reading of Grandfather’s will. I am dressed in the finest robes I have, and I watch blankly as the hairpiece is place upon my father’s head.

 

There is nothing left to hold me here.

 

Lu Ten is gone. My mother is gone. Vasuman calmly gave me a note declaring his leave of absence from the position of servant. Nuan, Lu Ten’s servant went, missing the day after Lu Ten died. Uncle Iroh did much the same after ordering the army to leave Ba Sing Se. And for Kuzon it was less a matter of leaving, and more one of staying with me.

 

There is nothing left to hold me here.

  
I turn my face towards the sun above me. I can’t feel it when the hairpiece touches my father’s head, but that doesn’t matter, it will be on when I open my eyes. I set my face towards the sun and send up a wordless prayer to Agni, asking for a safe journey. After all, there is nothing left to hold me here.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, here's the second part. I hope you like this!


End file.
